Open Office.org

You are correct and now you know why one cannot purchase an OEM machine without a copy of Windows installed on it for the most part.

Give it a try.

Call HP, tell them you want to purchase the very best note book computer money can buy, you have a good credit card in hand but the only condition you require is that you don't want Windows pre-installed.
See how far you get. LOL LOL

Rick, I think for 80% of the users it is a good thing that the systems come prebundeled. They would not know where to start without it. And for geeks, there are a lot of options ranging from self-built to many companies that sell PCs and laptops without an operating system. And if you are really desperate, you can always reformat your OS disk.

Microsoft Windows [n.]: a thirty-two bit extension and GUI shell to a sixteen bit patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.

In order for MSFT Office to read ODF formats which is the native format for most other office suite products, you will need to download the odf converter add in from MSFT. For some reason it is on Source Forge and not Microsoft Downloads.

True, it's easier for the person using OOo or other such suite users to save as .doc, but it wouldn't hurt for MSFT Office users to be able to read such formats as well.

JDorfler,
Which brings up the point.
MS has made public statements and announcements that it supports Open Source however by its actions, it does not include ODF readers natively in the Office 2007 Suite.
The consumer must hunt for the ODF converters and get them manually so the MS public statements are somewhat "Crafty" to put it in nice terms.
Thanks for posting the reference link.
Kindest Regards,
Rick P. ♥ :)

Rick P.,
Yeah, I understand and I agree it's a bit (a lot) shady. But I really don't want to bust on any office suite or put my personal preferences above trying to get things done. Their whole idea of supporting an "open format" was to try to create open xml as the defacto open document format. As we all see, it really didn't fly. Since it didn't fly they had to to do something (odf converter add in only available in source forge) and supposedly add support in the Office 2007 SP 2, which I don't know if is available yet or not. As a MSFT stock holder I would like to say I'm sorry to everyone. Well, at least the the 1/1,000,000,000,000 I own says it's sorry. Thinking about it, I think there's more zeros than that on that little fraction.

Sorry for all the linking, but I think it's best for folks to see for themselves. I don't want to be like Alex Jones and just say something is, just Google it, or give a link publicly and it's just a link to my own information that I may or may not have made up.

Jack,
Except for WinXP on my WinXP partition, everything else is Open Source on my PC. 90% of the time I'm in Ubuntu anyway, such as now. I have a great link for some useful utilities and apps that are all open source. I hope everyone takes a look and enjoys if you have Win.

Before you all go overboard on open source I like to remind you that there are nifty programs for little money that are quite useful. I would also like to warn about the freebee security suites. There you really get what you pay for. But there are excellent open source - no doubt. Open Office, Gimp and Firefox are prime examples.

Whs,
Can you give an example of some of the nifty programs for little money? Games don't count. LOL!

You are right about most of the freebee security suites. However, AVG along with SpyBot works great for me. But that's my personal opinion, and I don't use WinXP all that much unless it's to update what I have installed.

"Suites" as I understand the term, refers to software with multiple functions, such as Internet Security stuff that includes a firewall, antispyware, antivirus, and in some cases also a rudimentary HIPS. As far as routine apps go, Microsoft Office is a good example of a suite. It includes a wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database, and presentation software.

On the other hand, a dedicated piece only has one function. For example, the ZA firewall (though ZA does make some suites) is a firewall ONLY.

AVG, though I think they do produce a suite, is generally thought of as a dedicated antivirus piece. SpyBot definitely is a dedicated antispyware piece.

The distinction is important for the user, because there are advantages and disadvantages to both.